Newbies - Just starting out

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A place for those of us who are just dipping our toes into Homegrown living. Maybe we're looking to change how we buy our food, what we buy...Maybe we've started our first garden and have questions. If you're green, this is the place for you!

HOMEGROWN Discussions

My clovers are sprouting! Spreading clover around your garden will aid in the prevention of weeds. We just peppered a layer over the rest of our vegetables. I gotta say, I'm most excited for the…Continue

I'm a newbie gardener and just planted my first raised bed garden a month ago. I am loving it so far - it's like my baby! All the plants seem to be doing very well. My only problem is with my green…Continue

My husband and I used to be book store junkies but we have discovered our local library system. I have had some great finds both at our local branch and interlibrary loan. I was able to get Radical…Continue

Comment Wall

We planted 30 different fruit trees this spring. They all bloomed and have gotten lots of leaves. I picked off all the fruit they beard, as I was instructed. However, they don't seem to be growing much. I have sprayed them once and fertilized once. Should I do this more?

Curious: what skills do you most want to learn? Is it cooking, growing, making or just a solid mix of it all in order to "live HOMEGROWN"? I am currently dipping my toes into this vast pool of knowledge and sometimes feel a little overwhelmed! I'm living on my own for the first time and seeking ties to broaden my knowledge and the depths of my skills to be self-sufficient.

Looking forward to learning from all of you and digging deeper into this movement myself! But first, what skills are you looking to learn from HOMEGROWN? For me, it's everything...just taking it one step at a time!

I have been gardening for the past four years, and I learn something new about gardening, myself, and my family each year.

My first year I planted two zucchini plants and two tomato plants. It was in my foundation garden. Had no clue what I was doing. I only got two zucchinis from each plant, and a few tomatoes - none of the tomatoes ripened at the same time, and usually ended up getting eaten by bugs or something, or just disappearing. (found out later that the kids were picking them and having tomato bomb fights - they were fun to throw but they didn't like eating them.)

The following winter I bought myself a couple of rabbits. Threw their manure on the ground behind my garage where my Spring garden would be going. Early spring I dug and turned the soil, made lots of long rows of mounds, covered with ground cloth, then proceeded to plant five 10 foot rows of corn, one foot apart, then plant three zucchini plants around each corn stalk - companion planting, ended up with over 21 zucchini plants. I also planted tomato plants across another 30 feet of mounded soil - ended up with 27 tomato plants. I also planted some pumpkin and carrots, and other vegetables inbetween the rows of corn and zucchini. Well, to be honest, it was the best harvest I'd ever had, IF you like zucchini and tomatoes. The zucchini sucked all the moisture from the corn, though we had corn, it ended up too dry to do anything with. We couldn't give away all our tomatoes or zucchini. The plants grew to completely take over the entire garden. We had zucchini plants that were at least four feet in height as well as maybe a little larger around. The tomatoes outgrew their cages and were spreading across my lawn.

The following year I went back to foundation planting, or eatable landscaping. Cut way back on the number of plants of one species that I plant, and started learning how to preserve them.

This next year I am looking into getting more into eatable landscaping. I planted six fruit trees in my front yard, and will be adding two apple trees, a plum tree and two pear trees to my backyard. I also potted three thornless blackberry bushes, and will be placing those on the West side of my house - a walkway between my house and my neighbor's carport. I want to add several currant bushes, and other eatable fruit bushes around my house. My husband is still insisting on having his lawn, which is ok as my children love to play in it. I still have a couple small herds of rabbits, and last spring I invested into some chickens. Had a couple of ducklings too, but found out Raccoons live in the city and are terrible to small urban flocks. Lost both ducklings and nine chickens. Was going to sell out of all my chickens, but only sold five of the seven remaining - the last two were still small. Now I just have the two Buff Orpingtons who are now (sometimes) laying. My husband helped me build a chicken house, but I still have to add a door to it. My chickens are scooped up each night and put into rabbit carriers then placed into the garage at night to keep them safe from the raccoons - until the door is put onto the chicken house.

My goal for my garden next year is to actually grow vegetables that my family really like eating, such as green beans, broccoli, and corn. Have one zucchini plant, and a few pumpkin plants. I also want to introduce them to one new vegetable each garden season.

Oh, something else I'm thinking of doing this fall as I prepare my vegetable garden for winter is to put on a cover crop. Was thinking of something I could cut and feed to my rabbits and chickens throughout the fall and early winter. Any ideas?

Hi, I'm new to this group. (Obviously) My boyfriend and I built our first "backyard" garden on a 3x6 patch of dirt and a few containers. We had a little bit of success this year with pumpkins, beets, runner beans, tomatoes and radishes. We also planted some sweet potato slips in a container, but I've been waiting to check them until November. We planted even more things (eggplant, watermelons and squash) but when our apartment building started some remodeling, the workers stomped all over our poor little garden. We're already really looking forward to starting again next year!

Hello all! I just moved to a 1.5 acre lot and started building for my veg garden. But the pictures i took on my phone have not made it here yet. Does it normally take this long to email pictures to the site? Should i make a new email address?

... hmmm ... not really lost, I'll just change where I was headin'. Really expected 'newbie' group to be for ... well ... newbies (to the community). Turns out, as you that are already here have figgured out, it's a place for newer scroungers (no insult intended, it's me too you know!). Foraging is a much nicer word but to me it implies gathering food. I 'gather' most anything that I can get for cheap, for free or at least at a ridiculously low price. I'll just excues myself and poke around a bit more, might just fine where I was looking for.

It is my desire to live from the land and get from it what we deserve. That means nothing more nothing less. We should be respectful to others and our home the Earth. This is new to me but wanting to take it all in and live as natural as a man or woman can.